Expect a right stomper from the Audio Bullys

By REBECCA BARRY

It could be old-fashioned British modesty or the result of a late night manning the decks, but Audio Bullys' DJ Tom Dinsdale isn't what you'd call the world's most exuberant geezer.

Although the UK music press have heralded his music with boisterous MC Simon Franks as "hooligan house", he prefers to call it "just dance music, really. It's simple, just something we came out wiff".

Likewise, his technical set-up - which includes one of the most powerful Mac computers, a drum machine and a generous collection of synthesisers - is "nothing amazing". And he's "not too fussed" about keeping up with the latest tunes by going shopping for vinyl more than twice a week.

So take heed of his warning that their Big Day Out set will be a right stomper.

Like a tough weed penetrating the floorboards of a London nightclub, the Bullys follow the streetwise house blueprint laid by Basement Jaxx and the suburban humour of the Streets' Mike Skinner, with their debut album, Ego War, a collection of urchin tales about the small-scale sagas of London parties and street politics.

Their biggest track, the bouncy We Don't Care, was written about a friend's death but you wouldn't know it from its smarmy catchphrase, "What tha [expletive]!"

The album cover is equally Londoncentric, a blurry photograph of the pair glaring down from the subway, their name scrawled in graffiti.

"We're seen as a dance act, not just pop. But we're not trying to be anything at all. There's no harm in just making tunes for the dance floor. We don't try too hard to make something different, we just make what we like."

Dinsdale, who grew up in Kingston in the southwest, and has bought a flat near Franks in Richmond, certainly has no plans to leave.

"I like driving into town, I like flying in on the plane and seeing everything. I can see my house sometimes when I fly in - it's just got that feeling of home."

It's London where he has fond memories of hanging out with mates who ran pirate radio stations, playing around with their audio gear until he had the money to buy his own decks and sampler.

Two years after mastering the art of DJing, and aged only 18, his twelve inches were gracing the sets of some of the top DJs.

"I must've started producing at about 17. I liked a lot of French house and really simple little loops and driving housey stuff."

At school, he didn't have much to do with Franks, who was two years his junior, more musically inclined (he played both piano and drums) and just as keen on jungle, garage and the plethora of new illegally broadcast sounds.

The pair hooked up when they discovered their mutual passion for new beats and old punk, and before long were sending their demos to as many DJs as they could.

To get an idea of their musical eclecticism, their recent Back to Mine - a CD series in which artists of indie repute compile their own albums - features everyone from Marvin Gaye, the Kinks and the Beach Boys, to the Prodigy, Dance Conspiracy and Roots Manuva. "We had to kind of learn to perform on the way. And it's kind of taken a couple of years getting the live act to develop and the last year or so, it's really come together.

"Now when we go out and do this DJ/MC thing it's such a laugh."

BDO Performance

* What: Big Day Out, Ericsson Stadium, today

* Who: Audio Bullys, British house band

* Where & when: The Boiler Room, 4-5pm

* nzherald.co.nz will feature updates throughout the day from the Big Day Out beginning at 12pm on Friday.